Combaticons: Season 2
by ultharkitty
Summary: G1, Dysfunction AU. A series of cracky one-shot drabbles and ficlets involving the Combaticons, set between their arrival in season 2 and the animated movie. Content advice will be posted in chapter headers.
1. Two Tanks

**Title:** Two tanks

**Rating:** PG

**Warnings:** Cybertronian swearing, drunkenness theme

**Disclaimer:** Just playing in the sandbox, characters not mine.

**Characters:** Brawl, with Scrapper and Long Haul

**Notes:** Written for my beta over on LJ, who gave me the prompt 'G1 Brawl, another not Cybertronian tank and a... conversation'.

***

"Hey, Blitzthing!" Brawl kicked the purple tank's treads and slumped heavily on the floor beside him. He wasn't sure why the fragger had to sit around in alt mode all the time, let alone in the hangar, but eh, whatever. A moody, silent drinking partner was better than no drinking partner at all.

"Wanna cube?" Brawl slurred, holding out a half-empty tub of high grade. Blitzwing said nothing. "Nah? Your loss." Brawl paused, swirling the liquid. "You know what, right? You know what... Fraggin' team. Bunch o' glitches." He took a long, slow sip. "Specially Swindle... 'E's onna floor, can't hold his energon... Yeah, specially him. But _specially _the copter. Ugh." He brightened, thumping Blitzwing on the side with a resounding clang. "Y'r a good listner, y'know that?"

*

Over by the loading doors, Scrapper turned to Long Haul. "He's talking to the decoy."

"What, that Earth tank we painted up to look like Blitzwing? Ha!"

"Yeah. Think we should go tell him?"

Long Haul grinned. "What, and get a fist in the face for our trouble? I'm gonna say no."


	2. Not the Little Mermaid

**Title:** Not The Little Mermaid

**Continuity:** G1 cartoon, Dysfunction AU

**Rating:** PG

**Warnings:** None!

**Disclaimer:** characters sadly aren't mine, I'm just playing with them!

**Characters and/or pairings:** Astrotrain, Blitzwing, Brawl and Vortex

**Summary:** In which Astrotrain and Blitzwing have been engaging with one element of human culture, Vortex is an aft, and Brawl is outside.

**Notes:** Written for the tf_speedwriting prompt 'Evacuation'.

* * *

"Tanks," Blitzwing commented. "They shouldn't be able to swim."

Astrotrain shrugged. "You should know."

Outside the large window, and against all natural laws, Brawl trod water.

"Not exactly the Little Mermaid, is he?"

"I dunno," Blitzwing replied. "At least he's upright. And there's all the fish keep swimming round him. All he needs is one of them singing crab things."

"Maybe he's got, like, extra thrusters or something?" Astrotrain said. "Underwater thrusters?" But even he didn't sound convinced. "How'd he get out there anyway?"

Blitzwing gave him a look. "Do you really need to ask?" He pointed behind them, to where Vortex lay on his front over a table, snickering softly to himself. An empty high grade cube dangled from one hand, the keycard for the emergency evacuation chute was clasped in the other.

Astrotrain looked from Vortex to Brawl – who had started waving at them – and back to Vortex.

"Oh."


	3. Pressure

**Title:** Pressure

**Continuity:** G1 cartoon, Dysfunction AU

**Rating:** PG-13/T

**Warnings:** violence, threatening behaviour

**Characters and/or pairings:** Vortex and Swindle

**Summary:** In which Vortex finds something out that Swindle would really rather he didn't know. Set a few months after BOT.

* * *

Vortex slammed Swindle against the wall. The grounder's spare tyre juddered and his vision blurred. It resolved to a face full of copter. Impassive mask, blazing visor, and the world of hostility crackling through his energy field.

"Uh," he said. "Vortex, what are you- ack!" He froze, a hand around his throat, squeezing.

Vortex leaned close, fingers worming into the gaps in Swindle's grille, gripping, tugging. "I know what you're up to."

"Argh! I don't…" Swindle winced. He should never have taken his cannon off; just because he was back at HQ didn't mean he could go around unarmed. "I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Sure you do." Vortex pressed against him, and a hot, grating pain blossomed around the copter's fingers.

"I don't! I don't!" Swindle writhed. He could take the pain, _should_ take it, but the grille bars were twisting, sharp fingertips scraping against his engine fan. Rotor tips swayed in his peripheral vision. "Is this about the spare parts thing? Is it? I already said I was sorry! How many times-" He broke off, denta squealing as he ground them together. Oh frag no, he couldn't scream, not here, not now. But Vortex was crushing his vocaliser, was scraping holes in the blades of his cooling fan.

"You're planning on leaving us," Vortex hissed.

"No!" Swindle's optics fritzed, his vision fragmenting. How in the name of Cybertron had Vortex found that out?

"You've got a contact on Monacus." Vortex adjusted his grip on Swindle's throat, and lifted. "You've got the access codes to the space bridge."

"Oh frag no! No, Vortex, put me down, please!" Swindle's arms swung, his feet dangled. He tried not to squirm; he'd seen Vortex after interrogations, when he was free to play; squirming would only make things worse.

"Please?" Vortex parroted. "I don't think 'please' is going to cut it."

Swindle's audials rang, his fuel pump raced. "All right, all right!" he kicked back at the wall, scrabbling, trying to gain some kind of purchase, to support some of his weight.

"All right?" Vortex prompted.

"All right! I've got the codes!" A fresh burst of pain as one of his fan blades fell away. "I said all right! Stop it, I'm telling you! You wanna get rid of me, I know you do, after … after the incident. You won't hear from me again, I promise! Just let me go!"

"No," Vortex snapped. "Never."

"What do you mean, never!" Swindle struggled, clasping hold of Vortex's arm, prising at his fingers. He had visions of the copter taking him apart. Of his severed head rolling along the corridor, of Vortex prying out his personality component, and casually grinding it to dust underfoot.

"I mean," Vortex snarled. "_Never_."

Swindle forced himself to stop struggling; his visual sensors registered nothing but flashes of crimson, bright against the darkness. "But…"

"You're not leaving us," Vortex whispered. "You're not breaking up this team." He pulled his fingers out of Swindle's grill, too quick, too rough. The uprights snapped, small fragments of metal rattling down through his engine, falling between his transformation gears.

Swindle groaned, his pedes straining for the floor.

Vortex shook him. "Understand?"

The crimson flashes extinguished as Swindle's visual feed cut out. He hung limp, a trickle of something seeping from a tear in his throat.

It took three attempts before his answer emerged, rough and quiet in the heated air. "I understand."


	4. Room for One, Bruticus and Devastator

**Title: **Room for One

**Rating:** PG

**Characters and/or pairings:** Bruticus and Devastator

**Summary:** In which it's probably not a good idea to leave Bruticus and Devastator alone together.

**Notes:** written in response to this prompt from tf_rare_pairing on LJ: 'Devastator/Bruticus only room for one of us'.

* * *

.

* * *

It was the only sizable rock in the entire valley, and Devastator was sitting on it.

Bruticus huffed and glared. His hydraulics whined and his servos ached, but he was slagged if he was sitting on the floor like some low down ground-pounding piece of cannon fodder. He'd bested Devastator in battle at their very first meeting; by rights that rock was his.

"Move," Bruticus growled. He nudged Devastator's foot with his own, not hard enough to break Megatron's ban on in-fighting among combined gestalts, but hard enough to get his attention.

Devastator turned away. "Why should I?"

Bruticus snarled. "Because!" he snapped. If only Megatron hadn't forbidden them to fragment; there were plenty of boulders the right size for his components, but just one the right size for him. He made an effort to loom, hands on his hips, and tried again. "Right of conquest!"

"Again?" Devastator sighed. "Always the same with you, isn't it? Like a broken fraggin' cassette." He wriggled on the rock, pantomiming getting comfortable. "If you want it, you come and take it."

"Weakling!" Bruticus roared. "I'll tear you apart!" But he wasn't allowed; Megatron had said no. "I'll make you sorry!" Then suddenly it came to him. Sure, he couldn't sit on the rock, but he _could_ sit on Devastator.

And he did.

It wasn't the same as victory through combat, but Devastator's horrified yells of protest were the most wonderful thing Bruticus had heard in a long while.


	5. Playing with prisoners, Vortex

**Setting:** Cybertron, during 'The Revenge of Bruticus'.

**Summary:** The Combaticons have imprisoned Shockwave and Starscream, and Blast Off walks in on Vortex doing something he certainly shouldn't be.

**Characters:** Blast Off, Vortex, Starscream, Shockwave.

**Content advice: **non-explicit tatile/p'n'p, crack

* * *

**.**

* * *

Blast Off paused by the prison door. Oh no, Vortex… "What are you doing?" he snapped, trying to keep his vocaliser from hitching.

Vortex had Starscream pressed against the wall, his claws busy with the jet's ailerons. "What's it look like?" he hissed. Starscream moaned, wriggling.

There was an answering moan from one of the cells. "Get them out of here, _please_." Shockwave stood with his arms crossed. He faced the wall, his single red optic casting a bright reflection on the pitted metal.

A growl began low in Blast Off's engine. This was no time to watch Vortex frag the prisoner. No time to be looking at Vortex at all. Or Starscream for that matter. "Vortex, Onslaught needs you."

"My interface cable needs him!" Starscream cried. "Get out. Now!"

"Hush," Vortex hissed. He twisted the wing flap, making Blast Off cringe. Starscream screeched, a high long note which dissolved after a while into a sigh. Blast Off spun around, fists clenched. It was disgraceful.

From behind him came the soft noise of a cover sliding aside, and Vortex whispered, "Open up for me."

"Ugh." Blast Off shuddered. Degenerate glitches, rutting against the wall like organics.

In his cell, Shockwave appeared to have come to the same conclusion, his palms pressed flat against his audio processors. If it hadn't been for the holographic projector incident, Blast Off might have felt sorry for him. But he didn't much like being 'had', as Swindle had so ineloquently put it. Shockwave deserved to suffer.

Blast Off left him there.


End file.
